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Colonization Of The Solar System
This thread is for discussing the colonization of the solar system, mainly focusing on Mars and the Moon since they are the most relevant.
Main topics include transportation, industry, agriculture, economics, civil engineering, energy production and distribution, habitation, ethics and politics.
First order of business, our glories tech messiah Elon Musk has set his eyes on Mars:
Reason stated? Because being a interplanetary species beats being a single planetary species.
How does he plan to do this?
By sending two cargo ships by 2022 to Mars for surveying and building basic infrastructure, then two years later in 2024 sending 4 ships, two cargo ships and two crewed ships to start the colonization. First thing would be to build fuel refineries and expanding infrastructure to support more ships, then starting to mine and build industry.
This could mark a new era in human history, a second colonization era, this time without the genocides. The economic potentials are incredible, a single asteroid could easily support the entire earths gold, silver and platinum production for a decade. The moon holds a lot of valuable Helium 3, which right now is worth 12 000 dollars per kilogram! Helium is a excellent material for nuclear reactors.
Speaking about the moon, several companies have set their eyes on the moon, and for good reason.
In my opinion, the moon has the possibility of becoming a mayor trade hub for the solar system. Why is this? Simply put, the earth has a few pesky things called gravity, atmosphere and environmentalists. This makes launching rockets off the moon much cheaper. The moon could even have a space elevator with current technology! If we consider Elon Musk's plan to travel to Mars, then the Moon should be able to supply cheaper fuel and spaceship parts to space, to then be sent to Mars. The Moon is also rich in minerals that have not sunk to the core yet, and also has a huge amount of rare earth metals, which demands are rapidly increasing. Simply put, the Moon would end up as a large exporter to both the earth and potentially Mars. Importing from earth would almost always be more expensive compared to a industrialized Moon.
Now how would we go about colonizing the moon? Honestly, in concept it is quite simple.When considering locations, the South pole seems like the best candidate. This is because of it's constant sun spots, which could give 24 hour solar power to the colony and give constant sunlight to plants without huge power usage. The south pole also contain dark spots which contains large amount of frozen water, which would be used to sustain the agriculture and to make rocket fuel. It is true that the equator has the largest amounts of Helium 3 and the best location for rocket launches. However, with the lack of constant sunlight and frequent solar winds and meteor impacts, makes to unsuited for initial colonization. If the SpaceX's BFR successes, then it would be the main means of transporting materials to the moon until infrastructure is properly developed. Later a heavy lifter would replace it when transporting goods to and from the lunar surface, and specialized cargo ship for trans portion between the Moon, Earth and Mars. A space elevator would reduce prices further in the future. Most likely, a trade station would be set up in CIS lunar space and Earth orbit which would house large fuel tanks and be able to hold the cargo from cargo ships and heavy lifters. Sun ports would be designated depending on their amount of sunlight. Year around sunlight spots would be dedicated to solar panels and agriculture. Varying sun spots would be used for storage, landing pads and in general everything. Dark spots would be designated to mining to extract its valuable water. Power production would be inistially almost purely solar, with some back up and smoothing out generators. Later nuclear reactors would take over, but serve as a secondary backup energy source.
The plan:
If we can assume the BFR is a success, then we have roughly 150 ton of payload to work with per spaceship. The first spaceship would contain a satellite to survey colonization spot. Everything would be robotic at first. Several robots capable of building a LZ for future ships, mining of the lunar surface for making solar panels for energy production, then mining and refinement for fuel for future expeditions. The lunar colony would be based underground, room and pillar mining would be used to cheaply create room that is also shielded from radiation and surface hazards. Copying the mighty tech priest, a second ship would come with people and more equipment. With this more large scale mining and ore refinement would be started. Eventually beginning to manufacturing their own goods. Routinely BFRs would supply the colony with special equipment like electronics, special minerals and advanced equipment and food until the agricultural sector can support the colony. The colony would start to export Helium 3 and rocket fuel, as well as spacecraft parts and scientific materials. Eventually becoming self sustaining, it would stop importing food and equipment, manufacturing it all themselves to save costs.
I am not the best in agriculture, so if some knowledge people could teach us here about closed loop farming, or some way of cultivating the lunar soil. Feel free to do so.
Mining: I found a article here about the composition of the lunar soil and the use for it's main components:
In short, the moon has large amounts of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium and titanium in it's soil.
How do we refine them? By doing this.
Aluminum could be used for most kinds of wiring to requiring high conductivity to density ratio. Meaning power lines, building cables and such. Aluminum is not very suited for building structures on the surface because of the varying temperatures causing it to expand and contract. Iron or steel is better suited here. Aluminum could however be used in underground structures where temperatures are more stable. Aluminum would also most likely end up as the main lunar rocket fuel. Yes, aluminum as rocket fuel. Just look at things like ALICE, or Aluminum-oxygen. Aluminum-oxygen would probably win out since ALICE uses water, which would be prioritized for the BFRs, since I am pretty sure they are not multi-fuel. More on aluminum rocket fuel here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/88130-aluminum-as-rocket-fuel/&
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/realdesigns2.php#umlunar
https://blogs.nasa.gov/Rocketology/2016/04/15/weve-got-rocket-chemistry-part-1/
https://blogs.nasa.gov/Rocketology/2016/04/21/weve-got-rocket-chemistry-part-2/
Believe it or not, but calcium is actually a excellent conductor, about 12% better than copper. So why do we not use it on earth? Because it has a tendency to spontaneously combust in the atmosphere. In a vacuum however, this does not pose a problem. I does however need to be coated in a material so it does not deteriorate. This makes it suited for "outdoor" products and compact electrical systems like electric motors. Yes, a calcium electric motor.
Lastly, a few articles about colonizing the moon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Moon
https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-scientists-say-we-could-colonise-the-moon-by-2022-for-just-10-billion
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/HEP_Lunar.html
NASA article about production of solar panels on the moon: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20050110155.pdf
Map over the south pole: http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/images/gigapan
Feel free to spam the thread with news regarding colonization.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35333647
Like I said a couple days ago actually, I said I thought it was very likely that Ma Ying-Jeou would lose the next election as he and his administration are very unpopular, and I guess it turned out to be true, also, aside from being the first female president, She's also the second candidate to win under the Democratic Progressive Party as opposed to the more traditonal Kuomintang which has held it for 5 (arguably 6) terms. and her party has also won a majority in the legislative Yuan, which is actually a pretty significant swing.

I raised an eyebrow at a comment Weaponsman made about the Iranian nuclear program:
This isn't true. The vast majority of reactor designs require fuel with varying degrees of enrichment. Natural uranium is only .7% fissile material, and light water reactors typically need around 3% enriched material as fuel. The British CO2-cooled designs need about the same level of enrichment for their fuel. The Soviet RBMK used to be able to use natural uranium, but there was a hasty redesign to make them less explodey, so they cannot anymore and require fuel enriched to 2% or so. Only the CANDU reactor can use natural uranium, and even they often do not because fuel enriched to 2% makes their operation safer and more efficient.
Generally speaking, designs that use natural uranium have problems with positive void reactivity coefficients. Some of the Iranian reactors are heavy water units which might be able to use natural uranium, but would be happier and safer using mildly enriched material. However, at least one of their reactors is a light water plant, which would definitely need material to function at all.
Fast-neutron reactors require much more enriched fuel, usually upwards of 20% to 50%. That's still far shy of weapons' grade material, however, which is upwards of 85%.
Now, I don't expect Weaponsman to know everything; although he knows an awful lot. Seriously; history, asymmetric warfare, weapons, and crypto; he knows a whole lot about those things. So I don't hold it against him at all that he doesn't have in-depth knowledge of nuclear reactor technology.
In fact, Weaponsman is usually about the best, most-informed discourse on any matter it is he chooses to write about. In fact, after reading his piece I decided to do a little digging around on various public fora to see what people had to say about nuclear technology. The results were predictable, and I was filled with despair and rage.
So-called policymakers clearly do not understand this shit, and it's really easy to understand. I understand it; ergo it cannot be that hard. They're all either lazy or stupid. Nothing that Obama has said about the Iranian nuclear deal gives any indication that he or his speechwriters know what enrichment is or what it does. As for the general public, I'm not convinced that the majority of them know what the word "nuclear" means.
Public thinking on nuclear energy is constructed of bad, fuzzy analogies by people who lack familiarity with the most salient facts about it. Take for example this article on the international politics of uranium supply. It's obvious that the people that this article is about, and the people who wrote it are thinking of uranium as being analogous to oil; that in order to use it for power a continuous, large-volume supply of the stuff has got to be secured and guarded.
But nuclear fuels are thousands of times more energy dense than chemical ones; with breeder cycles and fuel reprocessing it's hundreds of thousands of times denser, getting on a million times (theoretically it's 1.5 million times denser). That changes everything! Indeed, the technology is slowly approaching the point where it will be economically feasible to produce electrical power from uranium extracted from seawater. The logistics of supplying uranium for power are completely different than for fossil fuels, and they should not be thought of as analogous.
Similar failure to comprehend energy density, you know, the thing that makes nuclear energy interesting in the first place, dominates public discourse on nuclear waste disposal, leading to vast overestimations of just how much waste is produced per unit energy. No, you're wrong, that's how fossil fuels work.
Anyway, nobody knows what the fuck about anything and everything is fucked.

Yes
i personally support it, by finding the KGB Felix Dzerzhinsky greatly improved state scurrility both inside the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and abroad (their jurisdiction was only domestic, but they kept the internationally influential people safe at night)
a dedicated defender of both the Revolution and all the Soviet peoples
what do you think of this news?

If you're interested in speculation on high-level, Machiavellian international maneuvering, I highly recommend the China Matters blog. The post linked is one concerning Narendra Modi, the new Indian head of state.
The long and short of it is that Narendra Modi is either a Hindu nationalist, or at least a fellow traveler. In my completely objective and unbiased assessment, Hindu nationalists are a bunch of creepy fascist assholes.
The China Matters author isn't the only author with this opinion; see for example this piece from The Economist pre-election, which states that remaining with the checkered, corrupt, but decidedly not-fascist establishment is the safer choice for India, and this post-election analysis of one of his speeches made in the US. Times of India gets in on the action too, continuing the theme of "dog-whistle politics" in Modi's speeches.
Naturally, the leadership of the United States is pleased as pie to be hanging out with this guy who is, if quite some distance from being literally Hitler, definitely a very shifty character.
(Meanwhile, Mr. Obama is excoriating the ugliness of racial prejudice vis a vis the Ferguson riots. This is proof that politicians are not actually people and cannot self-reflect.)
Why on earth would the liberal US countenance such a man, much less trumpet his legitimacy?
Because China. The US needs India, even India under dubious leadership, in its hastily-assembled counter-China Pacific Alliance. Whether this will work, and how the US will reconcile this with its existing alliance with Pakistan, remains to be seen.